


Capreae

by tibeyg



Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introversion, Minor Character Death, capri, period-accurate depictions of slavery, shameless Tiberius apologism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 01:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11772825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tibeyg/pseuds/tibeyg
Summary: Tiberius retires to Capreae in AD26. It's not his first time there.





	Capreae

**Author's Note:**

> I've used a few Latin words in here where I've felt that they can't be fully translated; hover for a definition. For any sharp-eyed Latinists, I must apologise in advance - I've kept them all in the nominative case.
> 
> See end for more historical notes.

He sees it at last, a jagged bulk dark against a sky slowly purpling like a bruise.

When he steps ashore, off the gangplank laid meticulously out for him, something within him rearranges and resettles. He recalls, with wonder, the first time he came ashore; a sprightlier man, hungry for _otium_ before his first taste of war. _Drusus, sixteen then, still in the little rowboat, rubbing his sore triceps and laughing incredulously. They had taken turns, with their fretting chaperone, to row. It had been around the sixth hour, the sun firing the cliffs terracotta-brown._

_‘This is it, then? Finally! By Jupiter, I’m starving.’ Drusus grinned expectantly at the chaperone._

_‘Now is hardly the time to eat! Come on, pull the boat ashore.’ He was wading towards the beach, sandalled feet swirling through the sun-warmed water. At his voice, Drusus and the chaperone looked up guiltily from their satchels – they had begun to burrow for food – and hastened from the boat._

_Their chaperone was a burly Germanic relic who had once served their stepfather as guard. The sun mocked him; he had gone squinty and ruddy under his fair hair, as the northern barbarians were wont to become. Not Drusus. The rays burnished him with light, skin aflame with the gleam of bronze. Thrumming with energy, he smacked a hand to the side of the rowboat and vaulted into the water. It rocked violently, drawing a shout from the chaperone as Drusus sloshed noisily over._

_As they made for dry land, the splashes of their wading feet sharpened into the crunch of pebbles. The cove into which they had rowed was enfolded by cliffs which stretched into the water like eagle’s wings. Overhead, a flock of gulls wheeled out over the sea. On an outlying rock, a black cormorant perched with precarious dignity._

_‘The island of goats, and all we see are birds,’ quipped Drusus._

_‘It seems Faunus is feeling ill-disposed to you today.’ He gave a fraternal shove to the sun-bronzed shoulder. ‘He’s not willing to make a show for you.’_

_Drusus barked out a laugh at that. ‘I am a city boy, alas! It’s no good for me to beseech the woodland gods for their favour.’ He cast a sly look over. ‘You may have to start, though. Going abroad so soon!’_

_‘It’s not a_ holiday _, Drusus. It is war.’_

_‘Still,’ said Drusus wistfully. ‘You’ll see the world!_ Imperium sine fine. _Meanwhile, I’ll be stuck here, trying to get voted into the quaestorship at our dear stepfather’s insistence…’_

He smiles at the memory. Drusus’ thirst to see and conquer had always been relentless, till it consumed him. He himself is no longer that unblooded youth who had rowed here with him all those years ago. Still, he can hoist himself onto the awaiting horse with the rusty muscle-memory of an old soldier. He begins his ascent with a slave who has an unlit torch tucked under his arm. The other slaves are left behind to unload the boat under his freedman’s instruction. It will be dark if they don’t hurry.

It is a rocky and treacherous path, but he knows it well. He had ventured up and down it many a time, hot on the heels of Vipsania as they gambolled down for their daily swim. _Weaving down the zig-zagging path, down the mountain face, tumbling out onto the beach. Exhumed from the matronly swathes of stolae and pallae, she moved fast; her pale, wet body slipped like a fish from his outstretched hands as they darted through sea-foam and tripped over tangled kelp. He was a soldier, sturdy and energised with the freshness of victory still bright in his veins. But she was wily; she twisted and ducked, and when he caught up, she told a startlingly filthy joke that would have stunned even the Palatine to a rare silence._

_‘You’ve been reading too much of that Ovidius fellow’s work!’ he admonished._

_‘Blame your stepfather!’ she said. She was bent over with laughter. ‘He loves him, has him around all the time! Can’t get away!’_

_He caught her then. The weight of her young waist, not yet thickened with childbirth, thrilled him more than the weight of the glittering eagle standard he had retrieved home from the Parthians to win her from her father. _

_They fell heavily into the water. It gurgled around his ears as they sank in a flurry of bubbles. Vipsania resurfaced first, face screwed comically, spluttering. She struggled upright to turn a narrowed eye on him. The sun was behind her, and she was limned with glass-droplets of brine. She was Venus Anadyomene arisen anew, churned into form from fury and froth. He was transfixed._

_‘You’re going to pay for that, Ti–_ mmf _!’_

_He tasted the salt of the sea on her mouth, and tasted it on her tongue when she forgot her promises of vengeance and gave into his touch. He carried her out of the water, over the threshold of sea and land, and lay her on his discarded tunic. She enfolded him, and he tasted salt again in the divot between her collarbones._

_That night, when he kissed her temple before she went to bed, he fancied that he could still taste the salt there._

‘Whoa!’ cries the slave beside him as they mount a spur. He looks over, startled from his thoughts, as the slave begins to splutter apologetically.

‘What is it?’ he says.

‘Nothing, my lord. Only. Well. Haven’t had a chance to get out much in the last week. Lots of things to prepare, as it were. Don’t get to see _that_ all the time.’ The slave points at the horizon behind them, where orange melts impossibly into molten turquoise.

‘It was that exact colour when I was last here,’ he says. ‘Drusus was with me.’

‘Your…your brother, my lord?’

‘No, the other. My son,’ he responds, and he recalls the boy standing piously at his side as he hurled yet another letter from his stepfather over the cliff to watch it dissolve in the clamouring waves below. 

_‘I’m sorry,’ said Drusus. ‘Is it bad? They made me give it to you.’_

_‘I know,’ he said. ‘Forget the letter, my son. It is good enough for me that I have you here.’_

_For a child, Drusus was strangely solemn; his stepfather had often teased the boy of inheriting his father’s dourness. He resented this; if Drusus had not been forced to run around Campania bearing his grandmother and step-grandfather’s newest set of political intrigues, perhaps he would have had a more carefree childhood. The ridiculous rituals of the Palatine were poisoning his son. _

_But Drusus was a clever child, more studious and sedate than his namesake had been. He had long ceased to search his son’s growing face for traces of his brother. The elder had never been able to sit still during their lessons, always itching for movement, for a game, for battle. The younger, however, was already eager to cultivate his fertile mind. Even now, his Greek pedagogus stood behind them with a straw hat drawn tactfully over his bearded face._

_‘How have you enjoyed your studies? How is everyone back home?’ he asked, hoping for a diversion._

_‘Mother says hello,’ Drusus said. ‘And she said she’s sorry about Julia.’_

_Vipsania was_ not _sorry about Julia. Vipsania hated Julia, had yelled unspeakably outlandish curses at her when his stepfather had issued the ultimatum. He and Vipsania had clung onto each other until the last minute, and she had attempted to graft herself to him to make it impossible for his stepfather to separate them. She had been bearing their second child then. Alas, the will of Augustus abated for no man – much less a woman. The child died with their marriage._

_She had attended his wedding to Julia, and he in turn had attended hers to her new husband. Some pains cannot be escaped for the sake of propriety. He had borne his sorrow with tears, she with resentment. He had watched from afar, with envy, the bevy of children he did not give her grow by the year. Even now with the faithless Julia exiled, it was too late for Vipsania to come back. Still, she lived on with him in their Drusus._

_‘I’ve upset you.’_

_‘No, of course not. It’s all right, my boy.’ He took his hands away from his face and gathered Drusus’ little body, fragile as an eagle-chick, to himself. ‘After you go home, Father may not see you for a while.’_

_Drusus tried to draw away._

_‘It’s for the best. I love you very much, but I need to be away from Grandmother and Augustus. Even here is too close. I can’t take you with me. You must protect Mother for me.’_

_Drusus nodded bravely. His little face, even now, bloomed with Vipsania’s features, the wide-set eyes and curving mouth. The nose, however, was his own Claudian bulk. He tweaked it to draw the boy from his solemnity._

_‘Can I visit you sometimes?’ said Drusus._

_‘If Grandmother and Augustus let you. It will be very far away.’_

_‘A week’s ride?’_

_‘Not if I can help it, my son.’_

_Drusus’ bottom lip protruded and wobbled – dangerously. He sighed. It was below his_ dignitas __ _, but he lifted the boy and carried him back to the villa._

It has since been demolished. In its place stands the Villa Jovis, aflame with torches to greet her master. She rises from the easternmost cliff, whitewashed and trimmed with red brick. Fitted with new administration rooms and visitors’ lodgings, it is a villa fit for a princeps.

If only he could share this with his brother, Vipsania, his son. Only he, fraying and weary, remains now. But when he steps inside the glowing warmth, he knows the island’s memory of them lingers here. He had stayed in Rome long enough. Now, he is home.

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> Tiberius' retirement to Capri in AD26 is documented in Suetonius' _Life of Tiberius_ , Tacitus' _The Annals of Imperial Rome_ , and Cassius Dio's _Roman History_. None of these accounts portray his retirement there in positive light. The "reconstructed" Tiberius I have portrayed here is largely thanks to the work of modern historians such as H.H. Scullard, Barbara Levick, and David Shotter.
> 
> There is no historical evidence that Tiberius necessarily visited Capri before his retirement. Before his permanent relocation there, he often visited the Campania region. His previous retirement was to Rhodes, an island off Asia Minor.
> 
> By 26, Nero Claudius Drusus, Vipsania Agrippina, and Drusus Julius Caesar had died.
> 
> Tiberius and Drusus I named their sons after each other, rare by Roman standards (they usually named sons after fathers/grandfathers). This seems to be a testament to their closeness. Drusus' son Tiberius became the emperor Claudius.
> 
> Tiberius was forced to divorce Vipsania when her father Agrippa died, leaving his widow Julia (Augustus' daughter) to marry Tiberius. Allegedly, when seeing Vipsania again in the streets, Tiberius followed her weeping and begging for forgiveness. He was sent from Rome shortly after on campaign. Vipsania died of unknown, natural causes.
> 
> Drusus II had been gearing up as his father's heir before his untimely death in AD23, holding successful military commands and two consulships. Although he seemingly died of natural causes, the ancient writers suspected Sejanus (the Praetorian Prefect at the time) of seducing his wife and colluding to kill him. His death devastated Tiberius, and is likely one of the reasons for his retirement.
> 
> If you like the enemies-to-lovers trope then check out [my gf's gay novel](http://valeaida.tumblr.com/post/149576789996/an-elegy-info-post), illustrated by me!


End file.
